Mitt Romney won six of the day's 10 contests (Mass., VT, VA, ID, AK and, the most important one, Ohio) and a couple of hundred delegates to build his total up to around 400 (without Alaska) of the 1,144 needed for the Republican presidential nomination.

Rick Santorum won three races (OK, TN and ND) and a stronger hold on the mantle of primary non-Romney challenger. He now has about 160 delegates.

Newt Gingrich won one election (his political home state of Georgia). But because of proportional representation, he won't get all 76 delegates.

Again, Ron Paul came up winless. His best showing was Virginia, where he captured fully 40% of the vote. Unfortunately for Paul, it was a two-man race and Romney got all the rest. Paul now has around five dozen delegates.

Again, exit polls revealed about five percent of the open primary's voters were mischief-making Democrats going for Santorum, turning Romney's three-point win into one point.

Although much of the media talk has been about Romney's inability to "close the deal" for the Republican nomination, his opponents are far weaker closing their attempted non-Romney deal with Republicans.

With the exception of North Dakota's caucuses, Romney finished second everywhere he wasn't first. This means that if his two main opponents win here and there, Romney wins the most places and gets delegates everywhere.

He even beat Gingrich next door to Georgia in conservative Tennessee with its numerous evangelical voters, who are supposed to be bothered by Mormons. Romney beat Santorum for second in the deep South of Georgia. And the Mormon creamed Catholic Santorum among Ohio Catholics.

Better news for Romney was that Gingrich got 47% of the vote in Georgia. While that's dwarfed by the 72% Romney got in his home state and the 60% Romney got in Virginia where Gingrich lives, it was enough to encourage Gingrich to keep believing in his Southern strategy. This, in turn, guarantees that the non-Romney forces will remain divided for at least a while.

Kansas comes on Saturday and then Mississippi and Alabama next Tuesday. Gingrich is perceived to have an advantage there over Santorum, even though both men were born in Pennsylvania.

Romney's win in Ohio added to his reputation as a closer. As he did in Michigan, Romney came from a double-digit deficit in the last two weeks to win. How he won in both places reveals the former governor's strategy, the depth of his national team and explains why Obama's Chicagoans have already aimed so much fire at Romney and are trying so hard to turn the debate to more divisive social issues such as contraception.

Mitt Romney won six of the day's 10 contests (Mass., VT, VA, ID, AK and, the most important one, Ohio) and a couple of hundred delegates to build his total up to around 400 (without Alaska) of the 1,144 needed for the Republican presidential nomination.

Rick Santorum won three races (OK, TN and ND) and a stronger hold on the mantle of primary non-Romney challenger. He now has about 160 delegates.

Newt Gingrich won one election (his political home state of Georgia). But because of proportional representation, he won't get all 76 delegates.

Again, Ron Paul came up winless. His best showing was Virginia, where he captured fully 40% of the vote. Unfortunately for Paul, it was a two-man race and Romney got all the rest. Paul now has around five dozen delegates.

Again, exit polls revealed about five percent of the open primary's voters were mischief-making Democrats going for Santorum, turning Romney's three-point win into one point.

Although much of the media talk has been about Romney's inability to "close the deal" for the Republican nomination, his opponents are far weaker closing their attempted non-Romney deal with Republicans.

With the exception of North Dakota's caucuses, Romney finished second everywhere he wasn't first. This means that if his two main opponents win here and there, Romney wins the most places and gets delegates everywhere.

He even beat Gingrich next door to Georgia in conservative Tennessee with its numerous evangelical voters, who are supposed to be bothered by Mormons. Romney beat Santorum for second in the deep South of Georgia. And the Mormon creamed Catholic Santorum among Ohio Catholics.

Better news for Romney was that Gingrich got 47% of the vote in Georgia. While that's dwarfed by the 72% Romney got in his home state and the 60% Romney got in Virginia where Gingrich lives, it was enough to encourage Gingrich to keep believing in his Southern strategy. This, in turn, guarantees that the non-Romney forces will remain divided for at least a while.

Kansas comes on Saturday and then Mississippi and Alabama next Tuesday. Gingrich is perceived to have an advantage there over Santorum, even though both men were born in Pennsylvania.

Romney's win in Ohio added to his reputation as a closer. As he did in Michigan, Romney came from a double-digit deficit in the last two weeks to win. How he won in both places reveals the former governor's strategy, the depth of his national team and explains why Obama's Chicagoans have already aimed so much fire at Romney and are trying so hard to turn the debate to more divisive social issues such as contraception.

Romney won by assembling a coalition of moderates, self-described Somewhat Conservatives, independents, Catholics, single women, college graduates and affluent urban and suburban dwellers whose top concerns are the economy and defeating Obama. "The economy is what I do," Romney says over and over.

Understandably, during a GOP primary in 2012, much attention has been focused on the Very Conservatives often opting for someone else when they have a primary choice. One, quietly Romney is slowly doing better with that group in each election. And in the end, if they really believe "Don't Tread on Me," what are they going to do on Election Day, sit at home watching a History Channel documentary on the gloriously pure Goldwater debacle?

Two, while Romney's conservative credentials and instincts might seem disappointingly moderate among some of the dedicated Republican primary crowd seven months out, they're perfect for a general election campaign two months out. There, victory depends on attracting, not scaring off millions of moderates and independents, women and seniors.

So far, and most recently in Ohio, Romney has shown impressive strength among suburbanites, a growing demographic that Republicans have been losing to Democrats in recent presidential elections. While Santorum won sparsely-populated tiny towns across numerous rural Ohio counties, Romney ruled the vote count by 19 and 20 points in and around Cincinnati and Cleveland.

With his laser focus on the still-sour economy, the disturbing direction of the country under what he calls the "feckless leadership" of Obama and restoring the American Dream, fiscal discipline and national defense, Romney intends to assemble a winning coalition of the worried and hopeful.

By summer, according to Romney's plan, much of the winter bickering will have dimmed, as it did after the long-running Obama-Clinton duel of 2008. Romney, Santorum and Gingrich (and even Sarah Palin and Rick Perry) have vowed to support the nominee.

There would be two men left standing there, Mitt Romney, businessman, and Barack Obama, Chicago Democrat. Who then will look conservative?

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